It’s late August. The temp will soon begin to cool. Not much in my neck of the woods but it will cool some so I look forward to it. With the cooler weather comes other niceties such as the sky getting dark quicker, Halloween, Scary Movies, Thanksgiving and the ultimate holiday, Christmas. But most importantly, this time of year brings peace to my soul in the form of a pigskin. Weekends are jam packed with it. It gets kicked off on Thursday Nights. Then, Friday Night Lights fuel the flame and are followed by Saturday afternoons ‘Tween the Hedges. Finally, Sunday and Monday Nights are reserved for the big boys. Yes, football is back! And that also means Fantasy Football is back!
For those readers of the blog that aren’t familiar, Fantasy Football (FF) is an adults way of acting like a total adolescent for 4-5 months and it be totally understood. You become a general manager for a football team drafted in your own keen assessments and football knowledge. As general manager, you set lineups, drop under performing players, pick up diamonds in the rough, navigate waiver wires and block your friends from the happiness that they so desperately seek in their lives. There are hundreds of ways to play the game but generally, a team consists of a QB, a couple of running backs, couple of wide receivers, a tight end (the subject of countless childish jokes on draft day) and a team defense. Throw in some bench players and occasional defensive guys and you have your roster. You take that roster and manage it each week of the season, while playing another GM’a team each weekend. Whichever team performs the best collectively wins. The record is tallied at the end of the season and you then go through the playoffs, crowning an ultimate champion. There are many many variations but that is the quick and dirty tutorial I am going with.
FF means that my management of J-Dub’s Ballers, across multiple leagues, becomes one of my top priorities behind family and work, or something like that. You see, FF has been a part of my life for about 15 years and there are certain standards and demands that have to be met to maintain peak performance. I have participated in such esteemed leagues as Ballerville (as commissioner), The Big Nut, Toejam, Coke Zero (as co-owner with DJ Shockley), and now more recent leagues such as Devy and Empire. My newest league, The Dirty Dozen, drafts for its inaugural season this week. Don’t let anybody tell you that this is easy. Don’t let anybody tell you that this mistress isn’t worth the time. Don’t let anybody tell you that she can’t be brutal either. FF can help strangers become friends and make friends mortal enemies at the same time. I have friends I would have never met without it. And I have never tried to embarrass or humiliate anyone more than these friends. 
I have my enemies in FF. Perhaps one of my oldest is Electric Boogaloos. Alex couldn’t be nicer and is a pleasure to chat with. But the Boogaloos have put a dagger in my heart on more than one occasion, those bastards. DeMeco Ryans and his 22 tackles single-handedly eliminated me from playoff contention in 2006, as I entered said playoffs as a #2 seed. I went on to win a league high (tied with Byron Johnson) 3 championships in that league but I still cringe when I hear the name Demeco Ryans. We had the pleasure of being in the same league for the better part of 10 years, meaning we squared off annually, sometimes twice a year. Motivation was never an issue when we would meet. Although that league came to a close this year, we are entering our 11th season together in a separate league this year. And I can’t wait.
Then there is the Brookwood Brawlers. Saint is one of my oldest softball buddies and a legit good dude. But his penchant for taking a dumpster fire of a draft and parlaying it into a championship defeat over the Ballers really steams my scallops. It has happened twice in the last 4 years alone. No matter how much I belittle him on draft day, that jack leg winds up in the championship. Old Petey Guerra and The Iguanas are close behind. Not so much for the recent history in Ballerville but for the shenanigans from The Big Nut in the mid 2000’s. Old downward dog himself pulled some rabbits out of the hats in that league. He’s got a Ballerville championship too but we have remained civil in that league. My other complaints about his team revolve around draft day, which I will touch on more later.
There have been others along the way, Shaq Straw from Wichita, Gotham Batvols, Memphis Mules and Ruudboys to name a few. But at the top of the list of football rivals may be the closest friend of all, The Tecmo Superstars, Byron “Willie” Johnson. First off, the nickname Willie. This “friend” traded me Willis McGahee for Edgerrin James many years ago and it turned out to be one of the worst deals in history. Thanks in no small part to McGahee’s bum legs. I began to refer to Byron almost exclusively as Willis McGahee after that, which shortened to just Willis and now has stuck with Willie. There have been trades since then that have evened out things but that bum deal in 2007 has always stuck in my soul. It spawned a lifelong nickname for goodness sakes. In Toejam, our most competitive league (16 teams), he amassed a career record of 85-39 with 21044 points scored. During that same span, I put together a 77-47 record with 20715 pts. In 120+ career games we were seperated by 7 wins and about 300 total points. I had 15 playoff wins and he had 14. We both had 3 championships. We faced each other 1 time in the championship and I took that matchup. But even that year, he beat me in the championship in Ballerville. Of the other major milestones tracked in Jam, he and I split all 5.
It all starts with draft weekend, which we just celebrated. We have a live draft for Ballerville at a rotating location where all owners get together from Chattanooga to Auburn to Americus to Albany. Willie travels each year from the TN line to spend a weekend at my house, Hustle Headquarters, being wined and dined in an effort to ward off any future McGahee/James deals. I believe in karma. We usually spend the weekend playing golf, playing Tecmo Bowl, watching full seasons of “The League” and binge eating junk food. It’s as close to returning to my childhood as it gets. Draft weekend typically kicks off the first of multiple drafts over a week span. We will not have Jam this year thanks to Benedict Shafer Arnold but there are plenty more to go around. I’m currently in email draft on Empire, Machi League is Tuesday and Dirty Dozen is Wednesday. That’s a lot of studying, projecting, reading and tweeting over a week. Injuries need to be assessed, depth charts analyzed and free agent moves recounted. Keepers are selected, rookie drafts completed and sleepers fawned over. I told you this isn’t easy.
The draft is the most important time of the year as it is when you build your team. And even though that team will change over the course of the season, your core is decided at the draft. The draft is also the most mentally consuming event of the season. Even casual football fans know that Adrian Peterson is a fine running back. And Tom Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. But how much does that casual fan know about the expected split of touches between Ezekiel Elliott and Alfred Morris. Who fills the void in Cincy while Tyler Eifert recovers from injury. What are the Steelers going to do while LeVeon Bell is suspended? Which rookies have looked good in camp? Which veterans have lost a step. Who will be the slot receiver in Indy? A fan of a particular team can answer those questions about their own team. But a fantasy owner has to know it all. We have to be prepared for anything and everything. Because believe me it will happen. The season is not won on draft day but it can certainly be lost. I can think of no other reason that I would need to know who the #4 receiver in Arizona is going to be.
While the draft is a proverbial numbnut think tank where minds haven’t worked harder over the past 12 months of actual career employment and day to day living, it is also the home of classic aggravations and buffoonery. Petey is the king of not knowing when his pick is. Add to that his penchant for drafting guys that are already taken and getting lost in his color coded folder and you have the draft day nightmare stereotype. Then you have the guys who moan everytime a player is taken, as if they were the next person on their board but just got beat to it. Then there’s the guy that hasn’t kept up with offeason moves. He usually drafts a player way too early that no longer has a starting position with their new team. He also doesn’t know who’s retired or injured either. There’s always the fellow that besmirches each pick made as if he is the oracle. Magazine guy is never prepared for recent news that changes the information in his 2 month periodical. Then there is over prepared guy with laptops, apps, stat sheets and tendency reports. I think I have been each of these guys at some point in my career and I’m not proud of any of it.
In the end, you have your make believe team and you begin to celebrate each time they perform well and loathe them every time they may do something to help their real team win, but not enough to get you that W. I’m looking at you LeSean McCoy. It’s really quite strange when you break it down. I will never own CJ Anderson again because of his 2015 season. Alshon Jeffery gets hurt too much. Khalil Mack is enemy number 1 thanks to 5 sacks that took me out of the playoffs last year. It goes without saying that I’ll never be able to look Willis McGahee in the eye if I ever meet him. It’s difficult to imagine that these human beings are going through their own personal ups and downs. For us, they perform or they are out. It’s a cruel world in fantasy. But it’s big business these days and it makes me pay attention to so many details I would otherwise miss. I can’t watch football the same without fantasy. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it’s bad. It’s rather embarrassing to leap from the Thanksgiving dinner table to celebrate a Brandon Pettigrew 2nd quarter touchdown. But I’d rather have some meaning to all my games rather than depending each week on my home team to provide the fireworks. It’s the Falcons afterall. 
The last piece of fantasy football, and probably the most important, is luck. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t. But regardless of draft day dominance or week to week strategy, you’ve got to have some luck to finish the drill. A referee call, a timely fumble, an otherwise unfortunate injury, a lapse in judgment from your opponent. The hardest part about being a good fantasy player is appeasing the fantasy spirits. So much of fantasy is trash talk and shaming, as evidenced by my current GroupMe chat in Devy League. But, as a part of my belief in karma, I believe that can sometimes bite you in the ass. I know it has me. It’s the only explanation I have for some of the harsh ways I’ve lost certain games in the past. So I’m constantly trying to balance the timing of a sweet zinger to a downtrodden owner with the need for apathy. Like I said, don’t ever let someone tell you this is easy. This is one of the only sectors of humanity where you have to be, and it’s acceptable, equal parts confidant, con man, poker player, shrewd negotiator, cool under pressure, trash talker and silent assassin.
The drafts are under way and the season is less than 2 weeks from opening. I may be hard to reach over the next few months. I may not make it to your wedding or kids birthday. I may not answer the door when I see your car in the drive. But none of it is personal. I do care. I just have a fantasy football team to run right now. And it’s not easy.
J-Dub
I pity the fool!
Solid.